John Ashcroft

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I am happy to yield.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I am very pleased to respond to those questions. There is a very strange anomaly here. What appears to be fundamentally and unmistakably clear is that the conference committee was not shut down because it couldn't work. The conference committee was shut down because it was about to work. The conference committee was discontinued and suspended in its operation, not because they couldn't come to an agreement but because it was on the verge of an agreement. They were on the verge of agreeing how, House and Senate conferees together, this important kind of reform related to the embargoes of food and medicine, that important kind of reform should be included in what we are doing. It was not the breakdown of the democratic process. It was the suspension of the democratic process. The real threat was not that democracy doesn't work. The threat was that democracy would work. It was going to work against the interests of a very few people. After all, the vote in the Senate was 70 to 28, before we made the harmonizing concessions that brought us to a place of unanimous consent. So there were very few people here who sought to displace the will of what had appeared to be the conference committee and which was clearly the expressed overwhelming will of the Senate. This veto power is strange indeed, especially when the democratic process was in the process of working itself.

Mr. ASHCROFT. No question in my mind. It was not the threat that the conference committee could not function. It was the threat that the conference committee was functioning. It was functioning toward an end with which some people were unhappy. That brings us to today's events. A few in the House and Senate among those who oppose this legislation, in the leadership of both the House and Senate, got together and made a unilateral decision, as has already been described by the Senator from North Dakota, to strip out provisions in the bill that had the broad support of Congress and broad support among the conferees and in the farm community. These were the kinds of things that they wouldn't allow to be voted on, at which point I began to wonder, with great seriousness, is this a bill that is right for the agriculture community, or is this a bill for special interests, is this a bill for some individuals who want to determine things on their own rather than to have the expressed will of the American people, as reflected in the Senate and House, become a policy of America, good farm policy, good foreign policy. As we all know, the House and Senate leadership are proposing a new conference report, a report that hasn't been voted on by any of the conferees and a report that is opposed by the farm community. Farmers have repeatedly asked simply that the democratic process be allowed to work. If we vote and lose, then that is what is fair. The American Farm Bureau has already said it will oppose a conference report that was forced on the American farmers without their short- and/or long-term interests in mind and that it did not address the issue of sanctions reform. I have a letter signed by Dean Kleckner, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, urging conferees not to sign the proposed agricultural appropriations conference report unless, and then listing conditions that aren't in the sort of fabricated conference report to be imposed by leadership. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter from the American Farm Bureau Federation be printed in the Record at this point in my remarks.

Mr. ASHCROFT. The fact remains that leadership does not want the democratic process to work because this proposal which they are against has very broad support. This isn't just good farm policy; it is good foreign policy as well. Before I explain what the bill does, though, I simply ask that my fellow Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and House do what is right for farmers. Don't vote for a bill that farmers oppose and then claim you are helping the farmers. Our farmers need money, but the only thing that is holding that up, and has been holding it up for a week, is a few in the leadership who oppose the will of the farmers and the Congress. Our farmers also need open markets, and that is what our amendment would have done. That was the expressed will of the Senate, which first voted 70 to 28 and later voted unanimously, by unanimous consent, to be a part of the bill. That opening of the markets would have been fair. We don't just get by by having the freedom to plant. We need to have the freedom to market for our farmers, if we are going to be successful. Let me take this opportunity to summarize briefly what the bill was designed to do. It was originally entitled ``The Food and Medicine for the World Act.'' I would like, then, to show how our approach to ending unilateral embargoes on food and medicine is good policy, both foreign policy and farm policy. The general framework of the bill is what I call a handshake approach to sanctions. The bill would not tie the hands of the President, who now has the ability just to snap embargoes into place, but it would require the President, before he said it was illegal for farmers in this country to sell their goods to certain customers around the world, to get the consent of Congress. So instead of tying the hands of the President, it would really require that the President sort of shake hands with the Congress, make sure this is a very serious thing, and if there is a need to embargo, in that case an embargo could be achieved. But it could not be achieved just on the whim of the executive. It would require the President to cooperate with Congress. This bill would not restrict or alter the President's current ability to impose broad sanctions in conjunction with others; nor would it preclude sanctions on food and medicines. Rather, it says that the President may include food and medicines in a sanctions regime, but he must first obtain congressional consent. So we really just ask that the President of the United States, before shutting off the markets of our farmers, consult with the Congress and that he obtain the consent of Congress. Under the bill, Congress would review the President's request to sanction agriculture and medicine through an expedited procedure--no stalls in the Congress. Mr. President, the Senate of the United States, offered with the opportunity to stop a program of curtailing markets for our farmers-- that program called sanctions and embargo--voted 70-28 to change the rules about that so our farmers have the right to sell food and medicine--not things generally but food and medicine--around the world. If the President wants to stop the sale of food or medicine, these things that are essential to the existence of people, the things that make America a friend to other people, the things that bind people around the world to America, knowing that we have the right motives in our mind--if we are going to stop the sale of those things, the President has to confer with the Congress rather than to do it unilaterally. In other words, don't let the farmers of America just be used as political pawns in diplomatic disputes, having markets shut down arbitrarily or unilaterally, markets for medicine. The Senate came to the conclusion, by a vote of 70-28, on what was called the Food and Medicine for the World Act. It was an amendment that I offered to the Agriculture appropriations bill. And then, because some people in the 28 were not happy about all details, we negotiated with those individuals, so that the next day the Food and Medicine for the World Act became a part of the Agriculture appropriations bill by unanimous consent in the Senate, and it went to conference. Little did we know that some of the leaders would decide to displace this overwhelmingly endorsed item by members of both parties--a majority of Republicans and Democrats, voted with a 70-majority vote, and of course everybody agreed to the unanimous consent order. But certain leaders decided they would displace that. So when the bill got to conference, this wasn't in the bill. And the Senator from North Dakota decided to stand up for the farmers of America and stand up for the Senate and what it had decided and say, ``I want that in the bill.'' He said, let's vote on whether we would put in the bill what the Senate voted on. You really wonder about things when the conference committee has to ask permission and vote to have the content of what the Senate enacted appear in the conference bill. But it was voted on and put in the bill, and properly done so. The House was ready to do the same thing when it became apparent to those who wanted to stop this, curtail it, didn't want this reform to take place, didn't want to offer to American farmers this set of markets, didn't want to say to them you are free to farm and now you are free to market, that they wanted to have these strings still attached. So just when the conference committee was about to operate to express its will, when it was clear how that will would be expressed, the conference committee was shut down for a week and has not been reassembled. Today, we learned that the leadership has said to the conference committee: You are not going to reassemble. All the issues are closed, and we have decided this is the way the report will be written. You are being asked to sign the report. So we find ourselves where the will of the Senate is stripped arbitrarily from the bill before it goes to conference. It is added back in conference, and it is again stripped arbitrarily. The conference committee is shut down when the House conferees express a signal of their intent to include that in what they had to say. We collapsed the democratic process and started the autocratic process, and we put a conference report before people, asking them to sign it in spite of the fact that it wasn't something that had been voted on or discussed; it was something to be imposed by leadership. That kind of suspension of the democratic process has been injurious. It loses the confidence of very important groups. I have submitted for the Record the letter of the American Farm Bureau saying that is not the way to run a conference. It is not the way to run polic There are some very strong policy considerations that recommend a modification in our approach. Having the President use farmers as a pawn in diplomatic disputes to open and close markets at will undermines the reliability of the American farmer as the supplier of food and fiber. It is very difficult for people to expect to buy things from you if they never know whether you are going to have them available for sale. Customers like a constant supply. We tried to solve this. We tried to say there wouldn't be this kind of arbitrary use of American farmers as pawns. We tried to say that in order for the sanctions to be effective and an embargo to be imposed it would have to have the consent of Congress. We have the special provision in legislation with regard to countries already sanctioned so that if there is any need to continue those sanctions in effect, the President could come and get those instated and up to speed and qualified so we would not have any interruption. The bill wasn't to take effect for 180 days after it was passed. So if the President wanted to make sure there were sanctions in place and imposed, there wouldn't be any exposure to gaps. Both branches of government would be given enough time to review current policy and to act jointly. Of course, there are times when the President should have the authority to sanction food and medicine without congressional approval. A declaration of war is one of those. The legislation maintains the President's authority in wartime to cut off food and medicine sales without congressional consideration. The bill has a few additional provisions that were not addressed in previous agricultural sanctions reform proposals. The first specifically excludes all dual-use items. That means products that could be used to develop chemical or biological weapons. There are not very many agricultural products or medicinal products that have military value. But the bill provides safeguards to ensure our national security is not harmed. Let me make clear that this is genuinely a bill that supports a policy of putting products which will eliminate suffering and hunger into the hands of those who need these products most. It is not about providing dual-use items for tyrants to use for military or acts of terrorism. Second, we make sure that no taxpayer money would be used to go to the wrong people. We specifically exclude any kind of agricultural credits or guarantees to governments that have sponsored terrorism. However, we allow present guarantees to be extended to people all over the world--to private sector institutions, groups, and nongovernmental organizations. This is targeted to show support for the very people who need to be strengthened in these countries--the people, rather than the dictators. And by specifically excluding terrorist governments, we send a message that the United States in no way will assist or endorse the activities of nations that threaten our interests. Now that Senators Hagel, Dodd, and I have explained what we have done in this bill, let me explain why it is good foreign policy and why it is both good foreign and farm policy. First of all, ending unilateral embargoes against sales of U.S. food and medicine is a good foreign policy. As the leader of the free world, America must maintain adequate tools to advance security and promote civil liberty abroad. The last thing I want to do is send a message to state sponsors of terrorism that the United States is legitimizing its regime. As I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, sanctions are necessary foreign policy tools against governments which threaten our interests. Richard Holbrooke, who not long ago was before the Committee on Foreign Relations seeking confirmation as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations--and we have since confirmed him--explained in his book ``To End a War'' how sanctions on Yugoslavia were essential to push Slobodan Milosevic toward peace negotiations in Bosnia. Regardless of whether we agree with U.S. deployment in the Balkans, effective sanctions saved American lives. They helped advance American policy without resorting only to the use of military force. So we have to have sanctions. But these sanctions must be deployed, very frankly, in a realistic and appropriate way. This measure is good policy because we don't want to say to terrorists: You can blame starving your own people on the United States by saying they won't sell us food and medicine. So we will starve you and we will not provide you with food and medicine. We will take the money we have in our country and buy arms, or explosives, or we will destabilize communities in which we live--world communities in one part of the world or another. I think we should deprive the dictator of the right to say, ``You are starving because America won't sell us food,'' because if we ask that dictator to spend his hard currency buying food, and we make it possible for him to do so, he absolutely cannot spend the same currency again buying weapons. Frankly, our farmers ought to be able to sell their food so that the people in those countries all around the world know that America is not in the business of starving people around the world. We are in the business of feeding people around the world. That is good foreign policy. If we can encourage people to invest their money in food rather than in armaments, if they will buy medicinal supplies rather than destabilizing various regions of the world, that is good foreign policy. But it is also good farm policy. The sanctions that have been imposed haven't been effective to hurt our enemies. They have been very injurious to farmers. I would simply refer you to the so-called Soviet grain embargo of the late 1970s. That is perhaps the classic, the biggest, of them all, where the United States of America canceled 17 million tons of contracts that the Soviets had to buy from American farmers. It hurt American farmers immensely by not getting the payments for those farm products. We thought we were punishing the Soviet Union. They went into the world marketplace and they replaced those purchases and saved $250 million for our adversary at a time when we inflicted the loss of markets on our own farmers. It didn't make much sense then, and it doesn't make much sense now. Policy reform in sanctions protocol would make our efforts in this respect far more reasonable, and it would require the President to get an agreement from Congress. It would not put us in the position where we embargo the sale of goods and where our customers start to look elsewhere to get their goods supplied. When we stopped the sale of 17 million tons of grain to the Soviet Union in the 1970s, it brought on new suppliers. Rain forests could then be plowed and planted. Other countries seeing that the United States was retreating from the major segment of the world markets could say: We can supply that. Those who were in the world marketplace said: We will start looking to reliable suppliers that won't be turning over the supply depending on diplomatic considerations that would, as a result, interrupt our supply. So it is both good farm policy to give our farmers the right to market, and it is good foreign policy to give our country the right and the opportunity to provide people with food and medicine to signal that the United States of America wants their government to spend money for food and medicine and not for military hardware. So it is in the context of this very substantial reform that would help the U.S. farmers. It would also help our foreign policy. It is in that context that I express my real disappointment in terms of what has happened. The conference committee was shut down, the democratic process suspended, and an autocratic process imposed. As a result, we are unlikely to have in the agricultural appropriations conference report on which we will be asked to vote--the kind of thing upon which there was so much agreement--a reform in the sanctions policy. The American Farm Bureau is opposed to this agricultural appropriations bill conference report unless sanctions reform is included. I think Members of this body ought to be aware of the fact we need sanctions reform. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated there has been a $1.2 billion annual decline in the U.S. economy during the midnineties as a result of these kinds of sanctions. This is a serious loss in jobs as well. The Wheat Commission projects if sanctions were lifted this year, our wheat farmers could export an additional 4.1 million metric tons of wheat, a value of almost half a billion to America's farmers. I want to emphasize, we have missed for the time being a great opportunity to reform sanctions protocols regarding our farm products. We have also interrupted what is a beneficial and therapeutic democratic process in the conference committee. I think Members of this body should seriously consider whether they want to vote for the conference committee report when it is the product not of the kind of collaboration that is to be expected in the development of consensus in our policy but it is as a result of an effort to impose the will of a few instead of to respect the will of the majority. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I thank the majority leader for reminding us of the greatness of the American people. We think we debate great policies here, and we do; we have very serious discussions. But there is nothing more important than to remind ourselves that the greatness of America isn't really in Washington, DC, it is in the little towns, villages, and cities in States all across this country and individuals who can do more in dedicated lives to their fellow citizens than we could ever do in complicated statutes. I thank the majority leader.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I certainly will.

Mr. ASHCROFT. I thank the Senator from Michigan and the Chair. I also thank the Senator from Michigan, Mr. Abraham, for his enlightening remarks about this important challenge we face --a challenge which would seriously undermine and erode America's competitive position in the production of automobiles. I want to focus on a different aspect of the corporate average fuel economy debate. Most Americans, if you talk about CAFE standards, think you will be talking about health standards in a restaurant or cleanliness in corporate a local coffee shop. In this particular setting, CAFE means average fuel economy. Basically, it is the average fuel economy of the car produced by a particular company. A company that had a car that had a very high corporate average fuel economy also would have to build very small vehicles because it takes less fuel to run a small vehicle than it does a large vehicle. The concept of a corporate average fuel economy standard was developed during the oil crisis of the 1970s. It required automobile manufacturers to develop vehicles that could travel further with less gas. This was due to the shortage of the gasoline that had been imposed by the oil industry cartel which had curtailed the availability of energy resources to this country. The CAFE standards at that time required automakers to maintain, fleetwide, an average fuel efficiency of 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 20.7 miles per gallon for trucks. This is how the CAFE standards got started. It was to try to help the United States get past the energy embargo imposed in the 1970s. It was not instituted--I repeat--it was not instituted for clean air purposes. Rather, it was adopted to conserve gasoline. In fact, Federal regulations require that big cars emit no more pollution per mile than small cars. I have to confess, with all Americans, that our air is cleaner today than it was 5 years ago or 10 years ago, and we are pleased that we continue to make progress. The air continues to get cleaner and that is a good thing. I will focus on the safety impact of increasing CAFE standards. In doing so, I will talk about the consequences of imposing CAFE standards--but not in terms of making sure we have enough gas to burn in the country because the embargo was lifted decades ago. I want to focus on the safety aspects of what happens when you demand that cars get more and more efficient--that somehow they must be able to go farther and farther on a gallon of gas. It does not take any special level of intelligence, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to understand that in order to meet fuel economy standards, cars and trucks have to be made lighter. So in an effort to make cars go further on a gallon of gas, the cars and trucks had to be made lighter and lighter. Common sense tells us when a lighter and smaller vehicle is involved in an accident, passenger injuries will be more severe. Since CAFE standards were enacted in the 1970s, the average weight of a new car has dropped by about 1,000 pounds. So if you look at the weight of a car as being protection--the protective barrier that surrounds a passenger--there is 1,000 pounds less of protection in the new car than in the cars prior to CAFE standards. A recent study from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that administers CAFE standards, found that increasing the average weight of each passenger car on the road by 100 pounds would save over 300 lives annually. So if instead of decreasing the weight of cars in order to reach higher levels of fuel economy we were to add 100 pounds to the weight of cars, we would save 300 lives every year. We are really not debating whether or not we are going to add weight to cars; however, this is a debate over whether we are going to mandate that car manufacturers make cars out of lighter and lighter materials. When you do that, it has a cost in terms of the relatives of the Members of this body, our families and our constituents and our constituents families. A number of studies have been conducted to determine the actual effect that the CAFE standards have had on highway safety. I want to emphasize that these studies are conducted by very credible agencies-- agencies that would not be anticipated to try and develop information that would somehow support the car industry. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a Federal agency that administers the CAFE standards. This agency is talking about the standards, which are its job to administer, when it says that if we could increase the weight instead of decrease the weight and we did so only by 100 pounds per vehicle, we would save 300 lives a year. One person a day, roughly, would be saved in America if we had slightly heavier cars. The Competitiveness Enterprise Institute found that of the 21,000 car- occupant deaths that occurred last year, between 2,600 and 4,500 of them were attributable to the Federal Government's new car fuel economy standards. We have between 2,500 and 4,500 people who don't exist anymore, who died because we have demanded lighter and lighter cars in order to meet the so-called CAFE standards, just last year. That is from the Competitiveness Enterprise Institute. This is not from the car manufacturers. This is from an independent think tank. A 1989 Harvard University-Brookings Institution study determined that the current CAFE standard of 27.5 miles per gallon is responsible for a 14- to 27-percent increase in annual traffic deaths. These are deaths-- they argue that would not have happened but for the fact that the new car fleet must be downsized in order to meet the stricter standards. As long as 10 years ago, researchers at Harvard University and the Brookings Institution determined that the CAFE standards and the imposition of the CAFE standards then extant were responsible for between 1/7 and 2/7 of the increase in the annual traffic deaths--just that much of a reduction in the weight of cars. So we have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, we have the Competitiveness Enterprise Institute, the Harvard University- Brookings Institution study. We have the National Academy of Sciences in this decade. This is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of GM, Ford, or Daimler-Chrysler. The National Academy of Sciences 1992 study concluded that the downsizing of automobiles due to fuel economy requirements has a direct impact on passenger safety. That study found: Safety and fuel economy are linked, because one of the most direct methods manufacturers can use to improve fuel economy is to reduce vehicle size and weight. I really don't want to pick at the National Academy of Sciences. It is not just one of the most direct methods used to boost fuel economy; it is a very important method. The most troubling conclusion from the National Academy of Sciences study was: It may be inevitable that significant increases in fuel economy can occur only with some negative safety consequences. We could go over the litany again: The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the Harvard University/Brookings Institution study, the Competitiveness Enterprise Institute, and the National Academy of Sciences--all of these organizations understand that it is not a cost-free operation to say we will save a few gallons of gas and sacrifice our citizens and their safety on the highways. Continuing to quote the National Academy of Sciences: The CAFE approach to achieving automotive fuel economy has defects that are sufficiently grievous to warrant careful reconsideration of the approach. I personally say we ought to carefully reconsider this approach. One study said in 1 year between 2,600 and 4,500 individuals died because we have mandated that car manufacturers lighten automobiles so substantially that they become death traps for the occupants. I think safety ought to be foremost in our consideration. When the National Academy of Sciences says we ought to reconsider the approach of lightening these cars by demanding more and more fuel economy, I think we ought to take that particular admonition seriously. The CAFE approach to achieving automotive fuel economy has defects that are sufficiently grievous to warrant careful reconsideration of the approach. It is with that in mind that when the National Academy of Sciences says we ought to carefully reconsider this approach, I think we ought to reject attempts by Members of this body to extend this approach. What is at the core of the National Academy of Sciences argument is this: They care about these lives that are lost on our highways, people who are riding in cars without adequate protection. The proponents of this measure dismiss the safety considerations as if they are an aside. Frankly, in a setting where our environment continues to improve, where our air continues to get cleaner and cleaner, we ought to be careful about the number of people we are willing to put in jeopardy and at risk. We are not talking about risk of a stubbed toe or a hangnail; we are talking about situations where individuals lose their lives. These standards, according to these studies--whether it is Harvard- Brookings, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the National Academy of Sciences--are responsible for Americans losing their lives. There are those in this body who want to make these standards even tougher, in the face of very clear predictions and a conceded understanding that to make these standards tougher means more and more people die on the highway. Based on experience and research, increasing CAFE standards to 40 miles per gallon--that is less than proposals supported by the President and Vice President of the country; they want to take the standards even higher than that--would cost up to 5,700 people their lives every year. I am not even beginning to address the aspect of the government telling its citizens what kind of cars they should be driving. This is to say that we won't let people buy safe cars, we will make them unavailable, and 5,700 a year will lose their lives because we have decided that we know better what kind of car people should drive than people could know by making their choices in the marketplace. I want you to know that this isn't all. I am pleased that Senator Abraham submitted for the Record this particular item, which was a reprint from the USA Today: ``Death by the Gallon.'' I brought this particular chart to show that a USA Today analysis of previously unpublished fatality statistics that 46,000 people have died because of a 1970s-era push for greater fuel efficiency that has led to smaller cars. As far as I am concerned 46,000 is 46,000 too many. But to think that we want to extend this so as to invite the deaths of as many as 5,700 more people a year by downsizing this container in which people travel called an automobile and lightening it to the extent that it provides no cushion of safety for people, or an inadequate cushion of safety, is a very serious proposal. Forty-six thousand people have died due to the implementation of CAFE standards. Is it time to reexamine those standards, or is it time to expand those standards? Forty-six thousand angels looking at the Senate should be telling us: Reexamine; do not extend those. Forty-six thousand people is the equivalent in my State to Joplin, MO. The deaths of 46,000 people in my State would wipe out the entire town of Blue Springs, MO, or all of Johnson or Christian Counties. The average passenger vehicle in 1975 was 14 miles per gallon; today it is 20 miles per gallon. That averages 7,700 lost lives for every gallon of increased fuel efficiency. I don't think 46,000 lives are worth it. I know they are worth more than that. I mean that is not worth the 46,000 lives. I asked the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to give me an opinion on raising CAFE standards and on the impact it would have on highway safety. I will insert their response in the Record. I ask unanimous consent to print this correspondence with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in the Record.

Mr. ASHCROFT. The institute found that even in single-vehicle crashes, which account for about half of all passenger vehicle occupant deaths, single-car crashes, people in lighter vehicles are at greater risk. I think we could have figured that out. It is pretty clear from 46,000 deaths that that is understandable. The letter also stated: . . . the more ``safer'' vehicles a manufacturer sells, the more difficult it becomes to meet the CAFE standards. So if a manufacturer tries to sell safer, heavier vehicles, it makes it impossible for them to meet the Federal standards. I want to make one thing very clear. I believe in promoting cleaner air. I believe we should be environmentally responsible, and we are getting there. I don't believe we should do it at the risk of human lives. CAFE standards have killed people. They will continue to kill people because cars have been lightened to the extent that they don't protect individuals. Consumers are not choosing small cars. They look at convenience and safety, and then they buy a larger automobile. According to a national poll, safety is one of the three main reasons for the popularity of sport utility vehicles. Small cars are only 18 percent of all vehicles that are on the road, yet they accounted for 37 percent of all the deaths in 1997. They are one out of every six vehicles on the road, and they are involved in more than one out of every three deaths on the highways. Some argue these numbers are so high because the small cars are getting into accidents with the bigger SUVs. The data does not support that. Based on figures from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, only 1 percent of all small-car deaths involve collisions with midsize or large SUVs--1 percent. The real tragedy is that these cars are unsafe in one-car accidents or in accidents with each other. Car-buying experts have said that only 7 percent of new vehicle shoppers say they will consider buying a small car. And according to that same source, 82 percent who have purchased small cars say they would not buy another. Safety-conscious consumers, whether they are my constituents in Missouri, or others, are purchasing larger automobiles, or sports utility vehicles. But now Washington wants to tell them what kind of car to buy, to disregard a value which they place on their own safety. We spend millions of dollars a year trying to make our highways safer: We fight drunk driving; we mandate seatbelt use; we require auto manufacturers to install airbags. Yet today we are being asked to support a policy to make our highways more dangerous and more deadly than ever before. I urge my colleagues to reject this attempt to impose higher and higher CAFE standards. The attempt to impose higher and higher CAFE standards is clearly headed for a consequence of higher and higher levels of fatalities. We have seen data from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. We have seen data from the Harvard/Brookings Institution. We have seen data from the National Academy of Sciences. We have seen the kind of comprehensive review of data published in the USA Today. It is pretty clear, as the Competitive Enterprise Institute chimes in, that lightening cars--taking the strong substances out of the vehicle so that it goes farther for marginal gains in economy, results in more and more people dying. I urge my colleagues to be sensitive to the fact that America can ill afford to elevate the carnage on our highways by eliminating the kind of substance in our vehicles that would be required if we were to adopt the amendment that is pending. So I urge them to reject the attempt to elevate CAFE standards and, in so doing, protect the lives of themselves and their families. I yield the floor. Mr. LEVIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Maine for her sensitivity to a crisis which is looming in American health care and that she is willing to constructively deal with that crisis. I thank her for her thoughts on this matter and for her cosponsorship of important legislation.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, as we look to the future, most of us, in our families, in our businesses, in our civic organizations, in our churches, like to deal with some sort of plan. As a matter of fact, there is a lot of buzz or talk these days about financial planning, making sure we have the capacity to meet the demands of the future when they come to us and when they fall upon us. It is incumbent on the Congress of the United States to engage in some planning, to take a look at the future and find out exactly where we ought to be going and how we ought to get there, and the things that are important and what we ought to do to protect our interests. It is with that in mind that we, the Members of the Congress, are delivering to the President a financial plan for the next decade. He will have an opportunity to act on that plan this week. That plan has been talked about, the tax relief contained in the plan, but it has not been spoken of very generously in terms of the other major features of this financial plan for America for the next 10 years. I think we can only understand the plan by looking at it as a whole, understanding what we are doing to protect the interests of this country in the years ahead. The first thing I think people want us to start to do is to be more responsible in the way we in Washington handle their money. One of the areas of irresponsibility in the past has been the Social Security trust fund. When there has been a little bit more in the trust fund--or a lot more in the trust fund--than was needed for that particular year, Members of the House and Senate have been a part of budgeting that money for expenditures not related to Social Security, to support the operational costs of Government. Americans are duly concerned because they know the reason there is a surplus in the Social Security trust fund is that big bulge of us baby boomers are paying in, but they know when this big bulge of baby boomers starts to consume instead of contribute to the trust fund, we are going to need the surplus. So the first thing we have done in our financial plan for the future is to put an end to that. We are going to stop the practice of spending the trust fund. So the financial plan which will go to the President this week says $1.9 trillion--trillion being a thousand billions and a billion being a thousand millions; I mean, it is almost impossible to think of it that way--$1.9 trillion is going to be reserved for Social Security, a major step forward. Americans have a right to expect us to plan to do that and we are doing it. That is a big part of the financial plan for the future. No. 2, people say over time most families, most organizations want to reduce their debt; they would like to get their debt down to manageable levels. Most of us take 30 years to pay off a home. We have decided to start paying down the national debt. In a part of the plan which I think is very important, we are taking the publicly held debt of the United States of America from $3.8 trillion down to $1.9 trillion, a 50-percent decline in the national debt held by the public of the United States of America. What a tremendous decline in debt. As part of a rational plan, the debt to the gross domestic product ratio goes from 43 percent to 14 percent over that 10-year plan we are sending to the President. First, we protect Social Security. Second, we pay the debt down by 50 percent. No. 3, as the chairman of the Budget Committee, Senator Domenici, has indicated, we put aside about $505 billion for contingencies over the next 10 years, things we might want to spend money on over and above what we are spending now. So not only do we have a reservation of $1.9 trillion for Social Security, not only do we cut the publicly held debt of this country in half, but we also reserve a half trillion dollars for expenditures we are not now making. It is only in the context of these three items--the saving of the Social Security surplus for Social Security; reducing the national debt, the publicly held debt of America, by 50 percent; putting aside a half trillion dollars for contingencies--that we understand what the tax relief is all about. The tax relief is what is left over. Americans earn the money. We trust Americans to earn this money; we should trust them to spend it. The question is whether we are going to fund families or bureaucracies. We got the President to agree with us on saving Social Security to the extent of putting $1.9 trillion aside, and I commend him for getting there. He wasn't there in his State of the Union Message. I commend the President for being willing to pay down the national debt. But the President, after that, wants to spend so much more of what is left over on more Government programs. Frankly, we ought to be giving a tax relief package, 1 percent, to every bracket. We ought to be doing away with the marriage penalty tax. We ought to allow parents and grandparents to invest money so their kids can have money for education, and the growth of that money can have a tax preferred status. We ought to allow people to buy health care in a more tax beneficial way, especially the self-employed who do not get it on their jobs. It is with that in mind I think this package is delivered to the President to say this is a comprehensive financial plan for the future. The tax relief only amounts to 23.8 percent of the total surplus as we have defined surpluses historically because we have been so responsible as to set that Social Security surplus aside. It is not part of what we will spend. And we start to knock down the national debt, take down the publicly held debt of the country 50 percent in the next 10 years and set aside a half trillion dollars for contingencies, and then work on abolishing the marriage penalty and tax, saving for education and expanded IRAs, and knocking every tax rate down by 1 percent--a 1- percent decline for folks at the top brackets and a 1-percent decline for folks at the bottom brackets. It seems to me that is the kind of plan upon which a nation can march forward. I call upon the President of the United States to reevaluate his position. He has expressed real doubts, serious reservations about this. Seeing it in the context of a financial plan for the future of the United States is to see it as a roadmap to opportunity and success and prosperity. I close with this. Because we had the two biggest tax increases in history in this decade, Americans have paid in far more money than we are going to need. It is like going to the grocery store and you hand the man a $10 bill for a $2.45 gallon of milk. You expect change. You expect to get something back when you pay more than is needed for what you have ordered. You would not think much of the grocer who said: I'm going to give you two more gallons of milk and a pound of bacon, whether you need it or not. That is what has happened. The President said we have the Government covered, the costs are covered, but they have overpaid. Now we are going to give them a whole bunch more Government, whether they have ordered it or not. I think we need a little change. Americans deserve some tax relief, and I am pleased to have had this opportunity to present this financial plan which the President should sign. I yield the floor.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 1583

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Virginia. I thank in particular Rev. Mike Coleman, of Hannibal, MO, for coming to this Chamber today to call us to our highest and best. He prayed about justice and he prayed about mercy, he prayed about the components of attitude and spirit that will help us achieve that which the people have sent us to do. The real opportunity we have is to live at the maximums of our existence rather than to perform at the minimums. When we invite the presence of the Almighty as we begin these proceedings, we equip ourselves to point toward the maximums instead of to dwell on the minimums. So as we approach this day, I thank Rev. Mike Coleman for coming from Hannibal, MO, hometown of Mark Twain. I think it was Mark Twain, the philosopher, who said there is nothing quite so embarrassing as a good example. Well, I do not think the Reverend is embarrassing to us, but he does set a good example as he calls us to our highest and best, and it is the prayer of all of us together with him that today we would serve the people with compassion and dignity and with justice and mercy. I thank the Chair and I thank the Senator from Virginia for allowing me to make these remarks.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. ASHCROFT. It might have been that Mark Twain got that education after he moved out East. He did end up more in the territory of the east coast, but his roots were solid and good, nourished by the right values.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I rise today in support of this amendment offered by Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire. This amendment, which eliminates the $99 million appropriated to the NEA, gives Senators the opportunity to decide whether the Federal Government should be in the business of judging and funding art. There are only two ways a Federal government could be involved in funding art: either by judging it or by funding it randomly. I don't think either of those is a good alternative for the Federal Government. I hope a majority of my fellow Senators will agree with me that the Federal Government should resign from its role as a national art critic--telling us what to enjoy or what not to enjoy, and spending our money to tell us that this is good or that is bad. It seems to me that to have the Federal Government as an art critic to determine what type of art is superior to another type of art is not something that a free nation would want to encourage. Government should not be in the business of subsidizing free speech, putting its so- called ``Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval'' on certain pieces of so- called art. When the government funds art, it will always have to make value judgments on what is art and what it is not. I don't think that is an appropriate function of government. The only way to get out of this business is to stop government from funding art. I guess you could fund art randomly--spin the wheel, and whichever artist's name comes up, give them the money. But you would have to decide who got to be part of the lottery. For those who say this is an issue of free speech, my view is that speech is not free if government funds it. As a matter of fact, it is funded speech, and not free speech. When we tax people, we take their dollars coercively. We simply say that if you do not give us the money, you go to jail. Try not paying your taxes and find out whether it is enforced or not. You will find out that the IRS can be very convincing and very persuasive because they have this independent capacity to coerce the dollars. Government subsidies, even with the best intentions, are dangerous because they skew the market toward whatever the government grantmakers prefer. The National Endowment for the Arts grants place the stamp of official U.S. Government approval on funded art. This gives the endowment enormous power to dictate what is regarded as art and what is not. A number of art critics and people in the arts community, have observed this. Jan Breslauer, Los Angeles Times art critic said in 1997 that, [T]he endowment has quietly pursued policies rooted in identity politics--a kind of separatism that emphasizes racial, sexual and cultural differences above all else. The art world's version of affirmative action, these policies . . . have had a profoundly corrosive effect on the American arts--pigeonholing artists and pressuring them to produce work that satisfies a politically correct agenda rather than their best creative instincts.--The Washington Post, March 16, 1997. I would like to call myself an artist because I like to engage in musical performances. I like to engage in the writing of music, and the writing of poetry. But I feel a little below par, so I can't really call myself an artist. There have been some who have said that some of my stuff might qualify for art. But I have never qualified for a grant, and I don't want a grant. My wife always teases me, saying: You can't sell it. You can't even give it away. But the idea of government funding art means that we would begin to bend the artist away from true expression towards something for which the government was providing a subsidy. That is the point that Jan Breslauer makes--that this subsidy has had ``a profoundly corrosive effect on the American arts''--taking people away from the true expression of art, ``pigeonholing artists and pressuring them.'' The concept of pressure and art is a very difficult concept to reconcile. I think of Michelangelo painting on the Sistine Chapel and the Pope demanding one thing and another. I don't know if it is true, but it is said that in response to that pressure, Michelangelo painted certain people in hell as a way of indicating that he would resist the pressure. Joseph Parisi, editor of Poetry Magazine, the nation's oldest and most prestigious poetry magazine, has said that disconnecting ``artificial support systems'' for the arts, such as cuts in NEA funding, has had some positive effects. Parisi has said that cuts in federal spending for the arts are causing ``a shake-out of the superficial. The market demands a wider range, an appeal to a broader base. Artists and writers are forced to get back to markets. What will people buy? If you're tenured, if the government buys, there's no response to irrelevance.''--Atlanta Constitution, Nov. 8, 1996. In short, the government should not pick and choose among different points of view and value systems, and continuing politicizing the arts. Garth Brooks fans pay their own way, while the NEA canvasses the nation for politically correct ``art'' that needs a transfusion from the Treasury. It is bad public policy to subsidize free speech. Why I should pay full freight to go see a country star, and the Mercedes limousine set should get a subsidy to go to the ballet, I don't know. On this point I refer Senators to section 316 on page 106 of the Senate bill, which makes a case for elimination of the funding of NEA. It says the NEA can only fund those individuals who have received a ``literature fellowship, a National Heritage Fellowship or''--I am still quoting--an ``American Jazz Masters Fellowship.'' I know very little about music, but I spend a lot of time in music. I know and appreciate that jazz is a great form of American music. But for the life of me, I cannot understand why the Federal Government believes it has the wisdom to use taxes paid by a hard-working plumber or a policeman or a painter to decide which jazz master should be subsidized and which jazz master should not be subsidized. Even if we could subsidize all jazz masters, is it fair to fund jazz masters and not pay stipends to a master classic pianist, a composer, a struggling rhythm and blues artist, or a rock-and-roller? The fact that the Federal Government does not have infallible wisdom to serve as the Nation's art critic underscores the brilliance of our Founding Fathers who, in writing the Constitution, specifically voted against provisions calling on the Federal Government to subsidize the arts. This is not a new request. The founders considered this and rejected it. Although funding for the NEA is small in comparison to the overall budget, elimination of this agency sends a message that Congress is taking seriously its obligation to restrict the Federal Government's actions to the limited role appropriately envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Nowhere in the Constitution is there a specific threat of authority that could reasonably be construed to include promotion of American jazz masters as compared to or in contradistinction to classical pianists or ordinary guitar pickers. During the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Delegate Charles Pinckney introduced a motion calling for the Federal Government to subsidize the arts in the United States. Although the Founding Fathers were cultured individuals who knew firsthand of various European systems for public arts patronage, they overwhelmingly rejected Pinckney's suggestion because of their belief in limited constitutional government. Accordingly, nowhere in its list of powers enumerated and delegated to the Federal Government does the Constitution specify a power to pick jazz masters over guitar pickers. It is noteworthy what the Constitution does provide. Article I, section 8, states: The Congress [of the United States] shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Rights to their respective Writings and Discoveries; We can protect the work of artists from unlawful and inappropriate appropriation by those who would steal those works and profit from them. In other words, our Founding Fathers established the noble goal of protecting intellectual property of those who are involved in science or the arts. The Founding Fathers did not think the way to protect the rights was to subsidize them or contaminate them or to prefer one or another. Instead, they believe Government protection should extend to protecting their initiative, their creativity, and their discovery. Some have taken comfort in the recent Supreme Court decisions that have upheld the Federal statute directing the NEA to take into consideration ``general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public'' in making grants. While some have said this ruling will appropriately address the concerns over the type of art the NEA will fund, I don't think that is the case. Moreover, in response to the Finley decision, Chairman Ivey said the ruling was a ``reaffirmation of the agency's discretion in funding the highest quality of art in America'' and that it would not affect his agency's day-to-day operations. That was a quote from the New York Times. These court cases do nothing to solve the underlying issue of whether Government should fund and decide what is art. Suffice it to say the time has come to end the Federal Government's role of paying for and thereby politicizing art. Art should be pure, not politics, and it shouldn't ever become pure politics; it can, when art is elicited, shaped, and coerced in order to comply with Federal guidelines. I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for offering this amendment. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware and commend him for his outstanding work in respect to this piece of important legislation. The Republican plan is a good plan for several reasons, the first of which is that the Republican plan protects every single cent of the Social Security surplus. None of it is to be consumed in the tax cut or in tax relief. Every penny of money from the Social Security trust fund is to be protected--$1.9 trillion over 10 years. When the President presented his budget earlier this year he said we should protect 62 percent of the Social Security trust fund. There is an important distinction. We would protect every cent. The President proposed spending $158 billion of the Social Security benefits over the next 5 years. We said zero. I am happy to say he went back to the drawing board. He still comes back with a plan that spends $1 trillion more in 10 years, including about $30 billion of the Social Security surplus, but it is closer to the Republican plan which protects Social Security. It is very important to understand the Republican plan does not invade Social Security in order to have a tax cut. Since Congress took Social Security off budget in 1969, the Democrats have never protected every dime of Social Security surpluses, and frankly neither have we until this year. In addition to protecting Social Security, the Republican plan pays down the national debt. What is important is that over the next 10 years we will pay off almost half of the national debt. That is responsible. Most homeowners do not pay off half their mortgage in 10 years. On a 30-year mortgage, it takes about 15 years to get halfway through the process. Mr. President, $1.9 trillion of the $3.6 trillion in publicly held national debt will be paid off. We will reduce the national debt from 41 percent of the gross domestic product to only 14 percent of the gross domestic product. On the other side, in contrast, they want to spend more money and leave Americans with a higher national debt. President Clinton's plan provides $223 billion less in debt reduction than does ours. The Republican plan also saves more money for Medicare. Over the next 10 years, the Republican plan sets aside $90 billion for fixing Medicare, in contrast to President Clinton's new Medicare entitlement that provides only $46 billion for additional funding over that period. After attending to all these priorities, after setting aside Social Security, after attending to and making sure we pay down half the debt, running it down from 41 percent of the gross domestic product to 14 percent of the gross domestic product, the Republican plan cuts taxes for every taxpayer; it cuts taxes for married couples, for savings in IRAs, for college education, for health care, cutting the bottom rate and every other rate by 1 percent. In addition, the Republican plan reduces the marriage penalty for couples, thanks to the outstanding work of Senator Hutchison of Texas. I was pleased to have joined her, along with Senator Brownback of Kansas, in accelerating that kind of relief in our effort. The Republican plan will make the standard deduction for married couples double that for singles. We will also increase the rate bracket for married couples, making it possible for them to become married couples without paying a penalty. In contrast, the President's plan and the Democratic plan would spend more money on Government, leaving less money for our families. If your faith is in government and in bureaucracy and your faith is not in families and in our communities, then you want to sweep resources to Washington and spend it here. If you believe the greatness of America is in the families and the hearts of the American people, then leaving some of their resources, which they have earned, with them is wise policy. President Clinton's plan calls for $1 trillion more in spending over the next 10 years. The American people did not balance the budget just so they could be the victims of more spending. Out of approximately $3 trillion in total surpluses over the next 10 years, our plan devotes only $792 billion, less than a quarter of the entire total surplus, to tax cuts. The Republican plan protects Social Security, cuts the publicly held debt in half, and provides needed relief to every taxpayer while protecting the opportunity to reform and address the needs of Medicare.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President. I stand before this body today to strongly oppose any attempt made by the United Nations to tax the American people. In its recently released Human Development Report, a proposal was included that would impose a one cent tax on Internet e- mail. This proposed tax would violate every virtue of the American people. The United States should not be subjected to an internationally levied tax. The United States was founded on the principle of ``no taxation without representation.'' John Locke said, ``If any one shall claim a power to lay and levy taxes on the people, . . . without . . . consent of the people, he thereby . . . subverts the end of government.'' Consent, according to Locke, could only be given by a majority of the people, ``either by themselves or their representatives chosen by them.'' Among the first powers that the Constitution gave to the Congress, the government's most representative branch, was the power to tax. And, notably, bills to raise revenue must originate in the House of Representatives. The United Nations does not hold the power, authority or right to levy taxes on the American people. This tax would be in direct violation of American sovereignty. There are currently 150 million Internet users in the world, 80 percent reside in the United States. Therefore, the United States would bear the biggest burden of this proposed tax. The American people are already overtaxed by the U.S. government, without being subjected to a tax imposed by the United Nations. By 2001, this number is expected to grow to approximately 700 million. If imposed, this tax would raise an estimated $70 billion in tax revenue annually, in addition to the United States' share of the UN's regular budget of $298 million. Mr. President, I firmly believe the Internet should be allowed to progress without government involvement or taxation. Instead of trying to tax the Internet we should be taking every action necessary to encourage its development. Mr. President, the American people are constantly burdened by the affects of local, state, and federal taxes. Last week alone, we historically voted to give the American people a reprieve, cutting taxes by $792 billion. The American people do not deserve this unfair and unjust tax. The Internet and e-mail are possibly the greatest inventions of modern technological history. They have revolutionized communication and have changed modern society. This proposed tax by the United Nations, or any other tax suggested by the UN--or any other international organization--should be aggressively opposed by the U.S. government.

Mr. ASHCROFT

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, it is my intention to send an amendment to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration. Amendment No. 1516 to Amendment No. 1499 (Purpose: To provide stability in the United States agriculture sector and to promote adequate availability of food and medicine abroad by requiring congressional approval before the imposition of any unilateral agricultural or medical sanction against a foreign country or foreign entity)

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, it is my intention to send an amendment to the desk. I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be considered as read, the amendment be considered agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I modify my amendment with the modification that is at the desk. The modification is as follows: Guidelines With Respect to State Sponsors of International Terrorism.--(A) Notwithstanding any other provision of the Act, the export of agricultural commodities or medicine or medical devices to the government of a country that has been determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism under section 620A of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2371) shall only be made---- (1) pursuant to one year licenses issued by the United States Government for contracts entered into during that one year period and completed within a twelve-month period after the signing of the contract; and (2) without benefit of federal financing, direct export subsidies, federal credit guarantees or other federal promotion assistance programs. (B) Quarterly reports to the appropriate congressional committees shall be submitted by the applicable agency charged with issuing licenses in subparagraph (A)(1).

Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment, as modified, be considered agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. I further ask unanimous consent that any rule XVI objections to the amendment be inappropriate and out of order and be waived.